Posts tagged health

February is National Cancer Prevention Month and while most everyone focuses on diet, exercise, and quitting smoking as the core ways to prevent cancer – they’re forgetting another pillar of prevention. Reducing exposure to carcinogens in our everyday environments.Hundreds of carcinogenic chemicals have been identified and, unfortunately, they’re quite common in our air, water, food, and everyday products. Here are some easy ways you can reduce your exposure to them.

I skipped my workout yesterday — I was worn out from the holiday and just needed a rest. The mental game I play though sometimes makes skipping not worth it. I start to feel the guilt of every bite I eat and then the thoughts of am I am slipping into the abyss. I know these are irrational thoughts — we all get a break and a few days of eating less than ideal foods isn’t going to kill me. It may set me back a few days but this is a journey and I can recover — I have before and I will again. Also

In order to hold me accountable – I emailed a few of the boot camp ladies and we met up at LA Fitness in Leesburg and did a boot camp session at 6A. I feel so much better!

If you think there is a chance of you not keeping your commitment to fitness during the holidays– figure out a way to make it super hard for you NOT to. Emailing my friends and setting up an appointment to meet up was the perfect way for me to ensure that I got up and headed out the door on time. And bonus – I got to hang out with my friends and have fun for an hour. If you are up that early, working out – you may as well as well make it fun and worthwhile.

As busy people know, coming up with good-for-you goals, such as snacking on more veggies or carving out enough “me time,” isn’t the issue. It’s making them stick. But, thankfully, there is plenty of good science on how to make your health or fitness goals last for the long haul.

How? Successful changers seek out or stumble onto the right strategies. Weight loss, for instance, is challenging, but researchers have learned that regular weigh-ins increase the chances of success by more than 80%. And when you’re trying to get yourself up off the couch, having a plan B (like using an exercise DVD when rain dampens your enthusiasm for a power walk) makes you 20% more likely to become a habitual exerciser.

Prevention turned to the top researchers in psychology, weight loss, diet, exercise, and more to identify the most common excuses to healthier living and the roadblocks that most often get in the way. Then we gave our experts a challenge: How can you jump over, sneak under, or crash right through the barriers?

I posted this article because I remember the time when Ally Mcbeal was on the air and all the magazines and media focus on these ladies and the publicity they got for their looks. It really influenced a lot of women out there at the time. It’s so interesting that these are the things we put up on pedestals only to find out that it was a lie in many so many ways — particularly and importantly – towards health. Can you even imagine limiting yourself to 300 calories a day!!!???

This week in People Magazine, I read about Olympic Champion Amanda Beard who also struggled with an eating disorder to reach peak performance/perfection. Goes to show you –nothing you see or read about should be taken at face value. Women who seem perfect from a media perspective are NOT. No one is -no matter how much money, fame, power you have — Just look at those Housewives — I wouldn’t trade what I have for their lives. Most of them seem really lonely and disconnected.

So next time you look at a magazine cover, watch a news program, see a story on the Internet – make sure you consider it with the knowledge that the grass is not greener for those people — it’s called Photoshop, starvation, denial — I am sure you can come up with a few choice words as well….

Portia de Rossi is a skinny lady, anyone who watched the last two seasons of ‘Arrested Development’ or has seen her on the red carpet with wife Ellen DeGeneres knows that. But back in the 1990s when she launched her career in the United States with a role on ‘Ally McBeal,’ the actress was struggling daily with anorexia, an affliction that once brought her weight down to 82 pounds.

The 5’8” actress, who currently weighs in at 168 pounds, tells ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show’ on Monday that her eating disorder emerged after she moved from Australia to Hollywood right before landing the ‘McBeal’ role. She says that at one point she was eating a mere 300 calories a day.

Exercise really is one thing that every one of us can do and it almost guarantees a return on your investment –improved health and reduced risks of many diseases. The power is in our hands — so Just Do It!

“While smoking is prevalent in many other countries as well, studies show that the US remains the home of the most obese adults,” says Natalie Lahnan, CPT owner of the Naples/Marco Island Adventure Boot Camp for Women. “According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an estimated 67 percent of Americans aged 20 and older are either overweight or obese. And research has shown that these people have an increased risk of premature death as compared to individuals with a healthy weight.”

Lahnan points to what doctors and public health officials have been saying for years: that obesity-caused ailments such as heart disease, strokes, high blood pressure, diabetes, as well as some kinds of cancer, can lead to premature death.

Baltimore, Maryland’s Ernestine “Ernie” Shepherd, at age 73, is a certified personal trainer, professional model and competitive all-natural bodybuilder. In March of 2010, on the stage of a television show in Rome, Italy, she was formally given the title of World’s Oldest Performing Female Bodybuilder (by Guinness World Records).

Not content to rest on her laurels, a couple of months later and less than two months shy of turning 74, Ernestine was back in the states and back on stage competing in the Capital Tournament of Champions bodybuilding contest. At this Musclemania competition she came in first place while competing in the Grand Masters division (ages 55 and up) and took second in the overall Lightweight Women’s category.

I don’t believe govt should be dictating what people should eat or buy –but I am all for this. Soda has no nutritional value at all and in fact can have detrimental health implications when used consistently over time. If the govt is giving people money to help them out — then they can and should ensure that they have those people’s best interests in mind. Soda and/or sugared drinks is not a MUST HAVE TO SURVIVE item — and in fact, I wish they would look at removing many of the processed foods that are allowable as well.

I love that addressing NY’s obesity issues is a major priority for the governor. It should be — I LOVE NEW YORK.

Just my 2 cents…

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg sought federal permission on Wednesday to bar New York City’s 1.7 million recipients of food stamps from using them to buy soda or other sugared drinks.

The request, made to the United States Department of Agriculture, which finances and sets the rules for the food-stamp program, is part of an aggressive anti-obesity push by the mayor that has also included advertisements, stricter rules on food sold in schools and an unsuccessful attempt to have the state impose a tax on the sugared drinks.

Public health experts greeted Mr. Bloomberg’s proposal cautiously. George Hacker, senior policy adviser for the health promotion project of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said a more equitable approach might be to use educational campaigns to dissuade food-stamp users from buying sugared drinks.

The health of New Yorkers, and particularly obesity, is one of the mayor’s signature issues. During his first term in office, Mr. Bloomberg expanded the city’s smoking ban to almost all indoor public places, and he is proposing to expand it to beaches, parks and plazas. New York City has banned trans fats in restaurants and requires restaurants to post calorie counts.

The city’s campaign against sugary drinks has been especially aggressive. This week, it introduced ads showing a man drinking packets of sugar. But its attempt to persuade the State Legislature to impose a tax on the drinks was met with skepticism and opposition from the beverage industry and grocery owners.

This morning I got to sleep in –now that Weds are my rest days but I gotta tell you –half my family was cranky. Lots of snapping and crying and complaining was heard from them. Kind of makes for a tough start to your day — but start my day I have….

Here’s a piece in CNN from Jaime Oliver that interested me:

As a parent — setting up the healthy foundation for my kids is a priority, especially since I know first hand how hard it is to change your ways as a grown up — so getting junk food out of schools is important to me —

While the bill wasn’t perfect, it would have created stronger nutritional standards and provided more money for the school lunch program — adding six cents per lunch for the first time in 30 years. This was the first step on the long ladder to fresh food, and now it’s a missed opportunity.

Among other things, this bill would have banned the junk food that is served in schools and competes with the fresh food your kids need. Eating this junk every day will take 10 years off their lives and cost you a fortune — adding thousands of dollars to the family health care tab.

I’m including this article today because I think it speaks volumes of the hard costs of being overweight for women. Some of it has to do with women earning more in general and includes a look at direct and indirect costs. I also think that crap food is cheaper – relating back to economic status – you don’t have a lot of money, you buy cheap food, which is crap food, which then leads to being overweight.
Disparities: Obesity Costs Women More, Study Finds

While a man racks up $2,646 annually in extra expenses if he is obese, a woman’s obesity costs her $4,879, almost twice as much.

The report is one of the first to calculate the economic toll of obesity on the individual, including both direct costs, like medical expenses, and indirect expenses, like lost wages and reduced work productivity. (The study did not account for many other personal consumer costs, like clothing, because data are not available.)